Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Appendices

The following appendices are reproduced with permission from www.noisyclassroom.com

Appendix A. Style tips for persuasive speaking

✵ Make eye contact with your audience — let them know you are talking to them.

✵ Use variety — in your voice, body language and facial expressions — that way you will keep everyone’s attention.

✵ Make sure your body language and tone of voice are appropriate to what you are saying — if you are talking about something sad, do not smile and vice versa.

✵ Do not move around too much — you do not want the audience getting seasick! Watch out for distracting gestures such as jangling change in your pocket or playing with your hair.

✵ If you stand up straight with your head up and your shoulders back, everyone will think you are confident, even if you are really feeling nervous.

✵ Try to sound like you care about what you are talking about — if you sound bored, your audience will be bored too.

✵ Try to pick interesting and persuasive language — if you just say ’good’ and ’bad’ all the time, it will not be as effective as picking your words carefully.

✵ Try to pick examples or analogies that you think are appropriate for your audience — an example from youth culture will be more persuasive to a room of teenagers than to an older audience.

✵ Try to have a strong opening so that you make an impression from the beginning — think in advance of a powerful way to grab the audience’s attention — and a strong closing so that you leave them on a high note.

✵ Have a ’sound bite’ that everyone in your team can use a few times in their speeches; for example, in a ’women fighting on the front line’ debate,’quality is more important than equality’.

✵ Be yourself. There is no need to overuse traditional vocabulary such as ’the worthy gentleman’ which will sound cliched to modern audiences. Neither should you attempt to alter your own accent; many of history’s finest debaters had strong regional accents or speech impediments.

✵ Make sure you have a glass of water nearby and do not be afraid to use it if you have a dry mouth.

Appendix B. Preparation for debates that are not in this book

What if Pros and Cons does not have the motion you are looking for? Here are some questions to ask yourself to help generate enough arguments:

✵ What is the most important reason why we should or should not do this? (For example, is there a problem we want to solve, a link we want to break, a principle we want to uphold?)

✵ What are all of the other advantages and disadvantages? (For example, it is cheaper, it sends out a strong message, it reduces a harm, etc.)

✵ What are the practicalities (cost, time, staffing, getting agreement, space, etc.)? (These are particularly good on the opposition for attacking the proposition plan.)

✵ What are the principles? (Equality, human rights, justice, liberty, freedom of choice, etc.)

✵ Who are all of the different people who are affected by this or play a role in it? (Police, doctors, government, parents, children, teachers, the poor, developing countries, NGOs, transnational corporations [TNCs], etc.) Is this good or bad for them?

✵ Are different countries affected differently? Developing/developed; democracy/ dictatorship; religious/secular, etc.

✵ What examples can we think of from the news recently that fit into this?

✵ What other examples can we think of? (Avoid examples from fictional sources and from your history lessons for the most part.)

And if you’re on the opposition, you might also want to consider the following questions:

✵ Is the proposal moving us too far/fast in an area without general consensus (moral, political, cultural, technological)?

✵ Why now? Why should we move first?

✵ What is the current trend?

✵ Are there more pressing issues?

✵ Should we be dealing with this problem as part of a broader issue?

✵ Libertarian: are freedoms (speech, movement, expression, trade) being infringed?

✵ Authoritarian: should there be more government regulation?

✵ Is security at risk?

✵ Does the proposal tip the balance too far to one side? Is one side ignored?

✵ What are the international implications?

✵ What about accountability?

✵ How much will this cost? Where is the money coming from? Who will run it? Do they have a good track record?

Appendix C. How can I keep speaking for the full time?

When you start debating, speaking for the full time (be it three, five or seven minutes) can be daunting. Even for experienced debaters, impromptu motions can be announced which leave them thinking ’How can I speak for seven minutes on that?’ Here are some tips to keep you on your feet until the double bell.

✵ Speak slowly — often when we are nervous, we speak really quickly, but if we speak more slowly, we will get better style marks and speak for longer.

✵ Really develop each argument — talk about it in detail and try and think of two or three ways of explaining it, giving different examples and analogies. If you need to make it go on for longer, imagine that nobody has understood you and you need to explain it again even more clearly, going through each step.

✵ Unless you are the first speaker, you can take up a lot of time in your speech with rebuttal — rebut everything the speaker before you has said and anything from any other speakers on the other side that you want to pick up. Rebuttal should not be dismissed quickly — like developing your arguments, make sure you develop your rebuttal to make it really clear.

✵ Beginnings and endings — if you have a rhetorical opening and closing, and signpost your own and your partners’ points at the start and summarise them at the end — that might take up to a minute of your speech!

✵ In an ideal world, if you had enough to say, then you would not take more than three points of information. If, however, you are going to run out of things to say really early, it is better to take a couple more than to end before time. If this is going to happen, try to spread them out rather than take them in a row.

✵ Make sure you use the preparation time to generate enough material — see Appendix B for advice on this.

✵ If it is not going to be possible to do a full-minute speech with new arguments and rebuttal, you are going to have to repeat points that have already been made, but if you do so, try to make them sound as new as possible with fresh analysis and examples. If the worst comes to the worst and you have finished your points and there is a minute left, do a very detailed summary of your points (i.e. repeat your own points). This is not ideal, but you will lose fewer marks than by sitting down early.

Appendix D. Guidance for the chairperson

The chairperson should introduce the topic and the speakers on both sides. They should then call each speaker in the pre-arranged order. They could say: ’It now gives me great pleasure to recognise the first speaker for the proposition, James Bond.’

When the speaker has finished, the chairperson thanks them and calls on the next speaker. If there is a floor debate, it will be up to the chair to ask for points from the audience. They could say: ’Please raise your hand if you have any points’, and then choose somebody. If the points all seem to be to one team, the chair should ask for opposing points to balance it out. At the end of the debate, the chairperson should take a vote. They could say: ’Please raise your hands if you wish to vote for the proposition. Now the opposition. And finally any votes in abstention (or undecided)?’

The chairperson should then announce the results of the debate by saying either ’The motion has been carried’ or ’The motion has been defeated’. They should then congratulate the teams and invite them to cross the floor to shake hands.

Appendix E. Key vocabulary

Motion or resolution: the topic which is to be debated. In many formats, this is phrased ’This House . . .’ in reference to legislative houses.

Proposition or affirmative or government: the side that agrees with the motion.

Opposition or negative: the side that disagrees with the motion.

Chairperson or speaker or moderator: the person in charge of the debate who makes sure that everyone follows the rules and introduces the speakers.

Timekeeper: the person who keeps time and gives time signals.

Points of information: a structured way of interrupting a speaker (see page 3 for more details).

Rebuttal or refutation: the responses made to the arguments on the other side.

The floor debate: a period during or after the debate where the audience can share their views.

Summary speeches or reply speeches: the final speeches on each side that sum up the key issues in the debate.

Protected time: the period at the start and end of a speech where no points of information can be offered.

Accepted/taken/rejected/declined: words used by the speaker when offered a point of information to show whether they will allow the interruption.

Extension: the new material that is delivered by the third speaker in the British Parliamentary or World Universities Debating Championships style.

Burden of proof: what the team feels they need to prove in order to win the debate.

Model: the details of the practical implementation of a policy.

Clash: the areas of the debate where the two sides have disagreed.

Definition: the terms of the debate.

Counter-proposal: where the opposition puts forward an alternative plan instead of supporting the status quo.